Category: Cici Liu

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Week 12: Response to ” A history of Internet Art”: Helen

After reading Greene’s work, I started to realize how I never thought of internet art as a category or form of art. Not because I think it is not an art, but just because I have never encountered this concept before attending college. Art in my life was mostly dancing and acting, but these days internet art is becoming one of the arts in my life. I think internet arts and artists are pretty underrated as not many people know the term” net art” and refer to them as form of art. However, I think in our age, where people are exposed to internet and use it as their medium of communication in their everyday life, internet art has a lot of potential to offer for users and artists. 

I believe that through internet art, artists have the opportunity  interact more with their audience and develop deeper connections. Also, by working on some websites, I found out how creative the internet space can be. An artist who creates art on the internet will have both art and coding knowledge, thus I think internet art deserve to receive acknowledgement from everyone. 

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Week 11: Response to “A History of Net Art”- Kyra Bachman

Before reading this article I had not really explored the concept of the meaning of internet art. This article largely discusses the emergence of a new medium of art on the internet, hence the name, in which surrealists are able to express themselves. This form of art first made an appearance in the early 90’s and has since been expanded upon, creating a community where artists communicate by combining an artistic vision with HTML code that links various images, links, emails, etc. together. 

Internet art seems to be an undervalued part of the artistic world. As someone who has taken many art classes growing up, net art is something I had never been exposed to, but something I feel is very powerful. While reading this I was taken aback by how I’d never heard of these artists and the work they had done. One that especially stood out to me was the “VNS Matrix”. Seeing as the women who created this were pioneers in the field, publishing evocative content, I was surprised that I’d never heard of them. This makes me wonder how many other net artists go unrecognized

 In the last few decades, the internet has become instrumental in the workings of individual and societal lifestyle. I think the emergence of internet art speaks volumes on how our use of the internet has changed. When the internet was in its early stages it seems like much of its usage was regimented, morose, and/or commercial. But internet art shows society’s desire for the internet to not only be a one-sided encounter. In the 21st century, the use of technology has become increasingly important, and as Green suggests,  People want more of interactive internet culture, net art is a way to create a deeper mutual understanding amongst individuals.

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Week 12: “Web Work: A History of Net Art” by Greene – Samanta Shi

Internet art is fascinating, as the browser is an incredibly powerful medium to deliver your message to a large medium — basically anyone in the world who has a device and an internet connection, which is more than half of the world’s population at approximately 3.2 billion people(!).

I have never really been one to appreciate internet art to be honest, but reading about its history has highlighted its prevalence in movements and making statements. For example, “The VNS Matrix (read “Venus”) were important forerunners for net.artists exploring feminist issues” (Greene 165). The internet as a medium can be used to push boundaries, provoke thought, and express emotions like frustration or happiness, similar to other mediums, but the biggest differentiator is its interactivity. The medium depends on a user’s input to truly come to life, and this is exciting.

I was pleased to see that my colleague Mark Napier was featured on the last page of this reading. “His Digital Landfill (www.potatoland.org/landfill) and Shredder (www.potatoland.org/shredder) tear the components of any Web page away from their code and either reconfigure them into a new design (Shredder) or add them to a dump pile of components from other pages (Landfill)” (190). As Greene mentions, “these works are dynamic and fun”, but to me they also comment on the fragility and manipulability of code as well as the possible interaction between distinct websites themselves. How might we take what’s already out there and consume it differently?

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Week 11: Response to “A History of Net Art”-Selina Chang

Before reading this article, I have never thought about net.art as anything other than drawings and stuff that appears through the format of web. This article literally alters my perception toward net.art. One quote that I really like from the article is that ” Building an equitable community in which art was conspicuously present in one’s everyday life was a collective goal.” I feel like through net art, net artists accomplish various things that we cannot simply achieve through daily life, or that is to say the life without the Internet. For instance, through internet art, one can challenge the domain name monopoly through net, just as the logic of Name.Space that is described in the article. And also the challenge toward feminism. They really fascinate me. I feel that net.art enables us to achieve a lot of things that we were not able to before. In addition, unlike drawing on canvas, net art provide a lot more possibility for artist to create and can interact with audience. I’m really appreciated for those devoted to doing and pursuing internet art since they provide me with insights that I would never had if not seeing them.

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Week 11: Web Work: A History of Net Art – Adam Chou

The case presented in Web Work: A History of Net Art is one that compares internet art to the industrial revolution. Essentially, the argument presented is that dadaists and surrealists were able to express themselves on a new medium, which allowed for Net Art to grow. And even though I believe this, just because it makes sense, it opens the floor to a lot of unanswered questions about the availability of art and the dream of an interconnected world, like many would wish for. The idea that art will unite the world is definitely something I think is discussed in the piece, where the coverage of 1995-1997 art pieces was certainly prevalent, but the lack of general proof has scared off this idea. For example, this is to also neglect the dot com bubble and the expansion of the internet since the inception of it, which begs the question: where did internet art go? Because of the rampant desire of the internet to be constantly monitored and surveyed by corporations, there are big questions to really understand what in the hell we want to consume. A good example of this might be the art that we see in museums, where we go as a nice date or excursion on break. In a museum, much of the artwork that is presented is either historically based or it is medium based. For example, in the MOMA, every floor is dedicated to art on canvas. There are many renditions of these mediums, but they remain rather stable. Same with The Whitney, where each collection houses a series of paintings and videos and interactive showcases. None of these, or at least the museums that I have been to, house internet art. I, for one, before coming into IMA, did not even know of the existence of INternet art. And so I wonder, is it something to be shared, or is it not? I would assume it is something to be shared, and so I think that it might want to be in a museum. But this is furthermore not the case. And so I then ask, what was the point of net art? Is it still around. This question puzzles me.